


Uncommon Friendships

by 4247



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Drug Use, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 17:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1193244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4247/pseuds/4247
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short story of Jemma and her best friend, growing up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uncommon Friendships

When Jemma Simmons was little, she had an imaginary friend. Alice, just like in the book. Her parents had worried, trying to decide whether letting their daughter read so much was such a good idea after all. She didn’t have any friends at school, preferring to stay in and read. But sometimes, on the weekends, she’d wander about the woods surrounding their yard, laughing and running. When she came back, she’d be full of stories about her adventures with Alice in Wonderland. She seemed so happy that her parents thought it a shame to keep her from it, locking their fears behind smiles and gentle questions, waiting for the day that it went too far and they had to intervene. 

Luckily, or perhaps not, Jemma learned that they were worried before they had ever spoken a word, listening to hushed conversations outside her bedroom. Alice was as real to her as any other person. And so, she hid the fact that she still believed in her, still went on adventures with her, instead talking incessantly to her parents about the latest viral news until they moved on - and she could talk with her friend again. 

As she grew older, it became harder for her to hear what her friend was saying to her. Alice had always been the braver and more hopeful, and without her pushing Jemma felt lost. So she turned to other ways to talk to her friend, things some would classify as drugs, but that she just felt were her ways of coping with a society that wouldn’t see past her gender to the deep and engaged mind that she possessed. 

When Jemma was 24, and just finishing her PhD, she met Leo Fitz out at a pub one night. With Alice bright in her ear, she went over and struck up a conversation, delighted to find someone who shared her passions so intensely. As the night went on, she could see her Alice flitting in the corners of her eyes, egging her on as any best friend should when their friends are trying to flirt. It was that which gave her the confidence to give Fitz her number, leading to the first “real” friendship she’d ever experienced.

When Jemma was 28 Fitz came to her with a proposition. He’d signed on with a new job, he said, and told them that she was the one she wanted to fill their other position. He’s just come across Jemma as she was beginning another of her journeys with Alice, and to her she was standing clear as day next to Fitz, smiling and nodding her head at the new opportunities her best friend would have.

Starting work at this new place came with one very large drawback - extremely thorough drug testing. Now Jemma could only hear Alice in her mind, talking her through life’s everyday challenges. She still found herself staring off sometimes, knowing just what her best and oldest friend would say in certain situations, wishing she could see her again, waiting for the day that she invented her own ways of getting past S.H.I.E.L.D.’s strict testing and back to her most curious and wondrous friend. Somedays the others worried, but they let it pass, as she seemed to them the happiest a person could be, surrounded by the things she loved.


End file.
